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Thinking About an Expedition

I’ve been thinking about a Tennessee expedition for at least two, three years, now. Two of them come readily to mind, although I’m still not clear on whether or what degree of support is needed. Not too far away from here are the fabled sources of both the Elk and Duck rivers. Neither river is famous for its commercial value, except in a couple of locations to canoe-float outfitters. Both have been dammed in one or two places to create lakes used for fishing and other recreational purposes. The Duck River is contained entirely within the State of Tennessee; the Elk’s course takes it over the state’s southern border and down into Alabama.

The feasibility of hiking, pedaling, and canoeing or kayaking the entire length of the Duck is at present an unknown. There’s a guy in the UK who’s done something like that – his website takes a while to load, but is pretty cool and worth seeing/reading. Slingshot Bikes of Michigan produces a foldable, full-size mountain bike that could be stowed aboard a canoe for those parts of the journey that could be completed by canoe. It’s conceivable that a foldable, stowable trailer could allow the canoe and gear to be pulled with the bicycle overland, or trailered canoe with bike stowed could be pulled by hand where necessary.

Slingshot’s folding, full-size mountain or all-terrain type bike

I did enter a competition to win the use of a Slingshot bicycle for a period of months, but I and others who posted more serious-minded entries lost out to a Canadian who called himself von Bubblegum and later changed his Facebook surname to Slingshot. That was the “other venue” I mentioned in my post entitled “Three Years On Two Wheels.” Ah, well, that’s how it goes. A company’s got to make marketing decisions it hopes will maximize exposure and increase sales. I wish the Canadian guy well. Canada is probably a great market for these bikes, not all of which are foldables.